Project Hail Mary

Rhinocrates

Rhinocrates

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I thought I'd open this because it might interest members. Project Hail Mary is a novel by Andy Weir, author of The Martian and is hard-ish sf (though a critical element has a TRL of 0 or less). Filming has wrapped on an adaptation starring Ryan Gosling that is slated for release on March 20, 2026. A trailer has been shown at a convention a couple of days ago. Audiences responses are that it's the best thing since fried Elvis.

Like The Martian, it's old-fashioned 'competence porn' in which the protagonists is given a series of technical problems and must devise a technical solution. (It owes a lot to Stephen Baxter's Moonseed and the Xeelee sequence IMO.)

Spoilers shouldn't be an issue as the book's been out for a few years now.
 
first picture from Movie
Gnt8CC2WUAEFAMB
 
Graham1973 said:
Here is the official teaser trailer
Click to expand...
That mashup of movie clips with Matt Damon...

Biggest issue the Movie will have is Rocky
if make are not able to portray him as true alien (like in Ridley Scott Alien)

Rocky is alien from 40 Eridani. who the hero encounter
His home world has 20 time higher gravity and he exhale ammonia
Got 5 legs that also are 5 arms with hands
and like fashion
 
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Michel Van said:
Biggest issue the Movie will have is Rocky
if make are not able to portray him as true alien (like in Ridley Scott Alien)
Click to expand...

A perennial issue with much sf - the 'alien' turns out to be just a human with stereotypical characteristics and bumps on their forehead, as in Star Trek. Rocky is certainly likeable as a character and while his physiology is alien, his cognition is not alien at all. Andy Weir devotes a portion of the story arguing for cognitive convergent evolution while spending time also on arguing for physiological divergent evolution despite panspermia. It would have been quite a different story, and much more thought=provoking if Rocky had been alien in his thought too.

Regarding the panspermia, Astrophage is repeatedly described as having mitochondria, i.e., being a eukaryote. We know that bacteria and archaea evolved without them.
 
Rhinocrates said:
just a human with stereotypical characteristics and bumps on their forehead, as in Star Trek.
Click to expand...
That because TV series budget are so low, it easier to take human with rubber forehead.

Ridley Scott Alien was on B-movie budget, but He got Talented people, who know to do it low cost.
Like guys from SFX from Space: 1999, the Set builder from Star Wars with aircraft scraps yard access
and Swiss Surrealist R.H. GIger who created most exotic Alien design ever.
That make Alien look like A-class Movie, with realistic look and feel for Spacecraft and Alien encounter
 
By the way, only a guess here. In the book, Grace wakes up alone to find both his crewmates dead. I'm guessing that in the film, only the commander, Yao, dies and Ilyukhina lives. Casting announcements have been for Grace and Stratt, and Milana Vayntrub has been named also, as if she were important. In the book, Ilyukhina gets only a few lines and is not in dramatic terms, a major character. However, a LOT of the book before Rocky appears and after Grace and Rocky set forth for Earth and Erid near the end consists of Grace talking to himself. That would make for very boring cinema - one character monologuing is going to be a lot less interesting on a screen than two characters brainstorming solutions to the parade of problems that Grace would otherwise have to face alone.
 

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